Prufrock’s laments his aging; “With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— / (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!” (131). “I grow old . . . I grow old . . . / I shall wear the bottoms of my trowsers rolled.” And in white flannel trowsers (rolled, we may presume), he plans to “walk upon the beach.” He could lament being aged not by years, but by a life unrealized and crumbling; “drown[ing]” (135) and ending in fear (133). Perhaps Prufrock’s dysfunctional love letter is meant for his muses; those who fancy him a … Continue reading “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” A Quick Feminist Critique

Reflection: Strivings of the Negro People Du Bois’ 1897 essay for The Atlantic is a work of reflection upon his early life which proceeds into 1897, yet is relevant in our 21st Century. His succinct use of English to flesh out the psychological burdens he saw within his black struggle for equal rights interests me (as a white man). His frankness in self-expression as “being a problem,” is in full bloom as he recollects when he was but “a little thing, away up in the hills of New England,” and his offer of a gift to “one girl, … Continue reading Strivings of the Negro People